


Be Gentle

by Engineer104



Series: (Un)reliable with the Ladies [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bodyswap, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Pining, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-19 17:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11902575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: For 'Lance Loves Ladies' Week, Day 4:Music /MakeoversLance and Pidge swap bodies, which totally counts as a makeover





	Be Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for some language, and Lance makes like one dirty joke lmao
> 
> Feel free to suspend your disbelief
> 
> And timeline? what timeline? (Note that I tagged this as 'canon divergence')

Pidge did not expect to wake up in a bed, anymore than she ever expected to fall asleep at her workstation in the Green Lion's hangar.

Nor did she expect to see Lance's belongings strewn over the floor, his jacket hanging from a hook on the wall.

_I'm in Lance's room. Why am I in Lance's room?_

Well, that was the question she should've asked, but at the moment she was still too groggy from sleep to do much more than roll over and bury her face in a pillow.

A pillow that smelled suspiciously like Lance, piney like cologne and minty like toothpaste. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent far more than she would've if she was more alert, but a knock on the door interrupted her.

She jerked up, almost bumping her head on the bed's frame.

"Hey Lance, we're starting drills soon, so hurry up and do your morning hygiene routine."

Pidge relaxed. It was just Keith, there to wake up Lance in case he overslept.

Wait.

If Pidge was in here, alone in Lance's room (she glanced around quickly, making sure she _was_ alone), then where was Lance?

Her eyes fell on the floor-length mirror in one corner of the room, and she finally caught sight of her reflection.

Lance's face stared back at her.

"What. The. _Fuck_."

\---

Lance woke up slowly, more uncomfortable than he had ever been in his life - and yes, he included the time he almost blew himself up pushing Coran from the path of a bomb. His neck and back both ached from his awkward position of sleeping sitting up, with his head resting on a desk, and he idly wondered if he had aged several decades overnight.

He straightened, stretching and trying to work the ache from his body. He extended his arms over his head, then behind him. Rubbing his eyes, he stood, wondering why and how he fell asleep at a desk.

He heard a Lion rumble at him, and he glanced behind him. "Oh, hi Green," he said.

Then his slow morning brain processed what he said.

"Green?" he said.

The Green Lion stared at him, eyes alight with...well, Lance didn't have the same bond with her that he had with his own Lion, but he felt like they were narrowed at him with _suspicion_. Because he was in the Green Lion's hangar. Without Pidge.

"Why am I here?" he asked the Green Lion, as if she could answer him.

The Green Lion simply growled, and Lance was not versed enough in cat-speak - sentient robot or otherwise - to translate without the direct mind link.

"Where's Pidge?" he asked.

"Pidge!" someone called from outside.

Lance glanced up to see Hunk staring at him; when did Hunk get so tall? "Pidge isn't here, buddy," he said. "It's just me."

Hunk frowned, confusion on his face. "Yeah, and I came here to get you. Shiro's assembling us for drills." Then his frown deepened into worry. "You slept here again, didn't you?"

"What do you mean _again_?" Lance demanded. "I've never slept here before."

Hunk chuckled, but he still looked stern when he said, "That's a lie."

"No, seriously, I sleep in my own bed every night!"

"Please, Pidge, we both know that's not true."

" _Pidge_?!" And then dread curled in his gut, and Lance knew why the Green Lion eyed him like she did, and why Hunk seemed so much taller, and why he didn't remember falling asleep in the hangar.

"Oh, fuck."

\---

Training drills were canceled in favor of something a little more important.

"So _you_ are Pidge?" Allura said, pointing at Lance's body, then at Pidge's, "and _you_ are Lance?"

"Guilty as charged," Lance - in Pidge's body - joked.

Pidge shot him a look, as if she didn't appreciate him using her voice to joke. Lance shrugged, to show her he really couldn't help this. Pidge rolled her - _his_ \- eyes and crossed her - _his_ \- arms.

Damn this was weird; and he'd only recently found out Pidge was a girl too!

Which made this whole thing even _weirder_. He was trapped in a girl's body!

It didn't feel much different than his own, really. His hands and feet were smaller, and he had to look up to talk to _everyone_ , but the change was otherwise not awful.

Except Pidge had some dry skin; when they switched back, he needed to talk to her about moisturizing. Which reminded him.

"Pidge, I'm charging you to take care of my face."

Pidge turned her head to glare at him - and boy was it strange seeing her glare at him with his own two eyes. "What? Seriously? _That's_ what you're concerned about?"

"Looks like mine - uh, _yours_ don't take care of themselves."

Nearby, poor Shiro looked like he was having a conniption, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. Coran stroked his mustache thoughtfully, and Allura just frowned in confusion.

Keith and Hunk, however, seemed to be fighting _giggles_. Lance made a note to himself that, as soon as he got his own, stronger body back, he would kick both of their asses for this.

"How can you be so _calm_ about this?" Pidge demanded. "You're in my body! I'm in yours!"

"Enjoy it while it lasts?" Lance suggested.

Pidge really looked like she wanted to smack him; she probably refrained only because she didn't want to damage her own body.

"How do we undo this, Princess?" Shiro asked.

"I honestly don't know," Allura admitted. "Perhaps we can put them in a healing pod? Or a cryopod?"

"The same cryopod," Coran said. "Like with you and the mice."

"The mice and I never exchanged bodies," Allura pointed out.

"How did this even _happen_?" Pidge asked. "We haven't done anything _strange_. No cryogenic sleep, no mind melding, no telepathy, nothing! Why is it me and Lance? Why not Keith and Hunk? Or Hunk and Lance? Or--"

"All right, we get it," Lance interrupted, rolling his eyes. "You want your own body back."

"And you don't?!"

"I do," said Lance, "but there's no point in panicking about it."

Then, Pidge grabbed him by the collar and brought his face close to hers. And though, in the deepest recesses of his mind, he imagined this sort of scenario many times - Pidge tugging him closer, their faces inches apart - he never thought he would have _this_ perspective, in this situation. And usually he didn't mind a closeup of his own face, but knowing Pidge's mind was operating it was jarring.

It didn't help that she was taller now.

"Listen, Lance, I'm panicking because I have no idea how or why this happened!" she explained. "Which is why I'm annoyed that _you're_ not panicking. Do you _want_ to be trapped in someone else's body for the rest of your life?!"

Lance grabbed her - _his_ \- wrist, and she let go of him. "Okay, obviously this isn't ideal, but if I had to choose someone's I wouldn't mind having _Shiro's_."

Nearby, Keith snorted, Hunk snickered, and Shiro rubbed his face as if exhausted.

Pidge rolled her eyes. "But do you see my point _now_?"

Lance sighed. "Yes, I see your point."

"Good." Pidge stepped away from him, crossing her arms. "Now we find out how this happened."

\---

Coran's first idea was to have them 'strengthen their telepathic bond' with the mind-sharing headset.

Pidge fidgeted as she put it on, the device tangling uncomfortably in hair that was even shorter than her own. She wanted to tell everyone that wasn't directly involved to leave the room, since for some reason they all insisted on lingering.

But in truth, if she heard either Keith or Hunk laugh or even heard the _suggestion_ of a laugh from one of them, she would make use of Lance's physical strength and kick them.

"So yesterday everything was as it should be, yes?" Coran asked, looking between Pidge and Lance.

"If you mean I was sleeping in my own body, yes," Pidge agreed. She glared at Lance, who glared back, seeming to say, _This isn't my fault!_

"Now, before we begin, can either of you think of some way your minds might have crossed?" Coran wondered.

"Whenever we form Voltron," Lance said, shrugging.

"Then if that's the case, why have only you two been affected?" Hunk said. "Shouldn't we all...I don't know...have rotated bodies or something?"

"That reminds me," Allura input thoughtfully, "we don't know how long this will last, so once we're done here we'll have to verify you can still pilot your Lions."

Great. Not only could Pidge not 'pilot' her own body, but she might not be able to pilot Green either.

"Uh, if it helps," Lance said, putting a hand up as if he was answering a question in a classroom, "the Green Lion didn't seem to like me very much this morning."

"I don't like you much either right now," Pidge said, crossing her arms.

"Again, _not my fault_ , Pidge," Lance retorted.

"Guys, let's not argue," Shiro said, staring them both down. Pidge shrunk under his gaze, and she saw Lance do the same from the corner of her eye. "I think it's obvious that neither of you wants this."

"Yeah," Lance muttered under his breath, "if I wanted to be stuck in a girl's body this isn't how I would've chosen to do it."

Pidge's face heated up, angry and embarrassed, and before she could stop herself she struck out at Lance, socking him in the shoulder.

"What was that for?!" he demanded, rubbing his arm.

At the moment, Pidge didn't care that she might've left a bruise on her own damn body. "I heard that," she hissed. "And I'd better not hear it again."

Shiro sighed, and Hunk and Keith seemed to decide - finally - that they would rather be anywhere else than there. They left, leaving Pidge and Lance alone with people who were, functionally, the only adults aboard the Castle.

"Well, Number Five, or should I say Number Three," said Coran, glancing once more at Pidge, "let's have you think of the last thing you remember before falling asleep in your own body, shall we?"

Pidge rolled her eyes but agreed, considering the task she was intent on the night before. She closed her eyes, and her brother's face flashed in her mind, broadcast for everyone in the room to see. It was the grainy image she'd found of his escape on Beta Traz, but it flickered into the photo of them together she still had in her room.

_I'll get you back, Matt,_ Pidge thought, _you and Dad both._ Only Lance would be able to hear that though.

She cracked her eyelids, and sure enough Lance stared at her, frowning. It was strange seeing sympathy for _her_ on her own face...though doubtless it was an expression that Lance still somehow managed to make his own.

"All right, your turn new Number Five," Coran told Lance.

"Okay, that nickname is kind of demeaning, Coran," Lance complained. But he closed his eyes, and Pidge saw herself in the midst of a huge family, ranging in age from baby to ancient. Everyone as far as she could tell smiled, and some of them smiled just like Lance did.

"Oh," she said. The sigh slipped out of her before she could stop herself, and her chest ached.

"So what do we think is the through-line?" Coran wondered.

"We both miss our families," Pidge said quietly.

Lance only grunted.

_At least you know yours is safe,_ Pidge thought along the link.

_I know,_ Lance replied. His internal voice sounded like his _usual_ external one. _But I still miss them._

_I know,_ Pidge said. _My mother must be safe, but I miss her just as much as I miss my father and brother._ Heat pricked her eyes, and she reached up to wipe the tears before they fell between the gaps in her eyelids. She even heard Lance sniff.

Blindly she reached forward, only for Lance to meet her halfway. The hug was a little awkward, since Pidge was used to being the _smaller_ one, but somehow she managed to tuck Lance into her arms, his chin on her shoulder.

Crying while being held was cathartic. Maybe they should've done this sooner.

She felt Lance's amusement at her thought; it was not unlike her sensing the Green Lion's feelings and impressions, nor was it entirely unwelcome.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and Pidge opened her eyes to see Allura patting her awkwardly, a frown on her face, probably attempting to comfort her. Shiro seemed to be doing the same for Lance.

"You're still Pidge then?" Allura asked.

Pidge nodded, wiping her face. She and Lance disentangled their limbs carefully and looked up at Coran, waiting.

"I am, as you Paladins say, stumped," Coran admitted. He stroked his mustache.

Disappointment coiled in her gut. "If there's nothing we can do now, I'd like to go work on something."

"Of course, Pidge," said Allura. "We'll let you know if we have anymore ideas."

"Thank you," said Pidge. She stood up and walked out of the room, Lance's eyes following her out.

She still felt them on her back even when she stood before her Lion.

\---

Lance found Hunk in the kitchen, drawing designs of some kind on a tablet.

He looked up. "Pidge?" he asked cautiously.

Lance shook his - or Pidge's, really - head. "Nope," he said, scowling, "still Lance."

"That sucks," he said.

Lance sat in the chair across from Hunk and propped his chin in his hand. "So do you have any idea how this might've happened?"

"Can't say I do," said Hunk. "It's kind of weird though."

"What is?" Lance wondered.

Hunk, attention diverted from the tablet in front of him, explained, "Well, before we shot into space in the Blue Lion, I never thought magic was real, you know? And yet here we are, and it turns out magic _is_ real. Sort of."

"Uh, okay?"

"But magic isn't really _reasonable_ ," Hunk said, clasping his hands together on the table. "We don't understand its laws like we do with physics."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at, buddy," Lance admitted.

"What I'm saying," Hunk said, grinning, "is that you and Pidge? Maybe what happened has nothing to do with science, or at least not with science as we understand science."

"I'm still confused."

"Maybe it's magic?"

Lance stared at Hunk, and Hunk stared right back, grin widening. Then Lance laughed. "You know, maybe you're right." Then he scowled. "But if you are, how do we fix it? Who on the Castle knows about _magic_?"

Hunk shrugged. "Ask the princess?"

Usually Lance would jump at the opportunity to speak with Allura, especially for a reason that wasn't frivolous, but this _body swap_ seemed too intimate, something shared only between him and Pidge. Even now he felt a little uncomfortable confiding in Hunk.

"I don't know, Hunk," said Lance. "She seems like the wrong pers--" An idea struck him, and it was so perfect he wished he'd thought of it before. He stood, his chair falling over with the vigor of his excitement. "I'm going to talk to Blue."

Hunk blinked at him. "That's actually brilliant."

"What can I say?" Lance said, smirking at him over his shoulder. "Maybe Pidge has rubbed off on me."

"You can only wish, dude."

\---

The Green Lion had opened up for Pidge easily enough, so that was a load off her mind (and off Allura's too; she would have to tell the princess the 'good news'). But sitting slumped in the pilot's chair and avoiding her reflection wasn't doing her any good.

Neither was staring at her hands - _Lance's_ hands, and imagining them holding her real, tiny ones. She tugged the gray hood of Lance's jacket over her head, and was glad that, at least, she had a reason to be wearing it that wasn't contrived.

The console in front of her lit up green, and Pidge straightened, wondering what the Green Lion was telling her. "What's wrong, girl?" she asked.

Pidge's own face appeared on the console. "Hi, Pidge," said Lance, waving at her from the screen.

"Hi Lance," she said, leaning in. "You're in the Blue Lion?"

"Yep." Lance smirked, the expression _interesting_ on her face; Pidge wondered if she looked like that when she smirked. "Seems we had the same idea."

"How did you know I was in my Lion?"

"Blue told me." Off-screen, the Blue Lion purred.

Pidge scowled, and she felt the slightest hint of an apology from Green; doubtlessly _she_ had informed the Blue Lion.

"So Blue, at least, doesn't care what I look like," Lance said, smiling.

"Why would she?" Pidge said.

"Well, I can't say I look as handsome as usual at the moment," Lance said, stretching.

Pidge scowled at him. "Gee, thanks."

"I mean, you're pretty, Pidge, don't get me wrong, but I miss _my_ body, you know?"

"Yeah," Pidge said, though her mind was replaying the way Lance said, _You're pretty, Pidge._ She shook her head, dismissing the thought; what was _wrong_ with her?

"So Hunk had an idea," Lance continued.

"What's that?"

"That _magic_ had something to do with our dilemma."

Pidge hummed, considering; so many strange things had happened to them since they'd first formed Voltron that _magic_ being the cause of all this wouldn't be surprising. But it was still too ambiguous for her liking. "Anything more specific?" she wondered.

"Nope," said Lance, "but I did come to ask Blue about it. Not talk to you, sad to say."

"I'm crushed," Pidge quipped.

"I know, I know," Lance said, laughing. "Conversations with me are treasures to be coveted."

Pidge didn't like how much she was blushing today. "You have no idea," she said.

Lance narrowed his eyes at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Pidge shrugged. "Nothing," she said, "but I'm cutting you off to talk to Green, like you suggested."

"Sure, whatever." Lance saluted her, and she ended the transmission with a single cue with her mind.

Then she slouched in her chair, huffing. "Green," she said, "what do _you_ think happened?"

\---

"An unfortunate side effect of getting shot through with quintessence?" Lance summarized as Blue fed him information. At an affirmative from his Lion, he tapped his chin. "That doesn't explain why it only affected me and Pidge though?"

Blue passed on more images and impressions, and Lance felt himself blushing. "That's not--what?" He rested his face in his hand. "You're saying it's because I was more concerned about Pidge at the time than I was about myself?" When Blue agreed, Lance said, "So what? And I call bull, because Shiro was plenty concerned about the rest of us!"

An image of Zarkon. Lance wrinkled his nose. "Okay, so Shiro was preoccupied with Zarkon and keeping the Black Lion away from him. This doesn't explain why _Pidge and I are the only ones affected_."

_Not to my satisfaction anyway._ For the first time he understood how Pidge felt about science and data.

Blue purred, sounding amused, and Lance grimaced, frustrated. "So if I had been more concerned about, say, Hunk than about myself, I would have swapped bodies with him?"

A negative.

"Uh, why not?"

A new image, that of a strong link, a connection, running two ways.

"I see...so Pidge was just as concerned for me as I was for her?"

Blue rumbled her agreement.

Lance cursed under his breath, words that his mother would've swatted him for uttering. "And how do we fix it?"

\---

"So according to the Green Lion," Pidge explained to Allura, Shiro, and Coran, "Lance and I need to spend some time in the cryopods while wearing the headsets."

"How long?" Shiro asked.

Pidge shrugged, rubbing her arm. "I think for as long as our minds have been...swapped." She hugged herself; she didn't fancy spending twenty-four hours in a small enclosed space, whether or not she was aware of it. Thanks to her unwanted familiarity with the Castle's ventilation system, she found herself _dreading_ any time spent in tight quarters.

"I'm curious how the Lions know the solution," Coran said contemplatively.

"According to Green it happened to two past Paladins."

Allura and Coran looked at each other, surprised, before they faced Pidge again. "That's certainly interesting," Allura said.

"Yes," said Coran. "Did your Lion know _how_ this came about?"

Pidge blushed. "Yes," she said.

When she didn't explain, Allura pressed, "How?"

"I don't think--"

"Pidge, we need to know so we can keep it from happening again," said Allura.

Usually, Pidge, scientific mind that she was, would agree, would be more than happy to share what she knew, but this was simply too _personal_ , too _private_. It was bad enough that Lance must know at this point.

Shiro, however, seemed to sense her discomfort. He rested a hand on her shoulder and said, "I'm sure that can wait, Princess. Let's find Lance and set up cryopods."

Allura frowned but agreed. She spoke a few quiet words to the mice on her shoulder and they scurried away, presumably to retrieve Lance, but he walked through the door before they got far.

"I know how to fix this!" he said, grinning.

"So do we," Pidge told him, a hint of smugness in her voice.

"Aw, you beat me?"

"What can I say?" Pidge said, smirking. "My Lion loves me more."

Lance pouted but didn't retort.

A cold, sinking feeling lay in Pidge's gut then when she remembered how, exactly, the mind swap came to be. She looked away from Lance and wordlessly followed Allura into the hall lined with cryopods.

Coran fixed them once more with the headsets, while Allura set up the cryopods. "We'll have you sleep for ten vargas," she explained. "I think that should be long enough, and we can't afford to be waylaid any longer if we require Voltron."

"Of course, Princess," said Lance without a hint of flirtation.

Pidge peered at him suspiciously, but he wouldn't look at her either. In fact, even through the activated mental link between them, he seemed to be keeping his mind carefully blank.

Pidge stared at the pod. She didn't want to go in.

"If it's anything like the healing pods, you won't even notice."

Pidge glanced to the side, at Lance. He smiled reassuringly at her, and Pidge realized that of course he must have sensed her reluctance. "I know," she said, "but it still..."

Lance reached out and grasped her hand. It was all backwards, her hand should've been the smaller and paler, but the gesture was comforting and warm nonetheless. "Don't worry, Pidge," he told her, "I'll be right here when you wake up."

Pidge then nodded, shoving aside her apprehension, and extracted her hand - too big, too dark - from Lance's - too small, too fair. "I'll hold you to that," she promised.

She stepped into the pod, grateful for the reassurance that he broadcast across their mind link even if it didn't do much to make her more comfortable. The pod closed, and she shivered as the temperature inside fell.

The last thing Pidge knew before she slept was Lance's warm presence in the back of her mind.

\---

Lance blinked and flinched at the sudden warmth that flooded the pod as it slid open. He stepped forward on weak legs, falling bonelessly into someone's waiting arms.

"Ugh, I hate this part," he complained, voice muffled by a muscular arm.

"Lance, buddy?" said Hunk. "That you?"

Lance lazily raised his hand and offered a thumbs up. He followed the motion, and recognized the hand as his own. He smiled. "Well, that's a relief." Then he frowned, straightening as feeling returned to his limbs. "Where's Pidge?"

Hunk helped him turn to where Keith held Pidge up. He had one of her arms slung across his shoulders while she rubbed sleep from her eyes with her other hand.

Lance felt the all too familiar, all to unpleasant sting of jealousy in his stomach. "Aw, I wanted to catch her when she came out of the pod," he whined.

"Dude, you couldn't even catch yourself," Hunk reminded him.

"Details," he mumbled, burying his face in Hunk's shoulder.

Hunk removed the mind-linking headset from his head and patted him on the back, and he instantly missed the low, sleepy rumble in his mind that he knew to be _Pidge_. "You remind me of when my brother had his wisdom teeth taken out."

"Why's that?" Lance wondered.

"Because it's like you're on anesthesia, since you're being more honest than you normally would be."

"I'm plenty honest, Hunk."

"Not about everything," Hunk pointed. "Now do you want food first, or sleep?" He helped Lance out of the hall of pods and towards the Castle's main wing, Keith and Pidge stumbling along ahead of them.

"Pidge," said Lance, "I want to talk to Pidge."

"How about when you're not slurring your words?" Hunk suggested.

Lance just grunted, allowing Hunk to lead him to the kitchen. Halfway there, he managed to start walking on his own power, but he still almost tripped over his feet a few times, Hunk reaching out to grab his arm before he fell. And thanks to the return of his own height - and his longer legs - they caught up to Pidge and Keith right outside the kitchen doors.

Pidge glanced at him over her shoulder; she blushed slightly, and then Lance remembered why they swapped bodies in the first place.

"We should probably...talk," Lance said lamely.

Pidge eyed him suspiciously, but nodded. "Yeah, we probably should."

Nearby, Keith asked Hunk, "What are they talking about?"

Hunk patted Keith on the shoulder, a gesture that was one part comforting and one part condescending. "I'm sure we'll find out eventually."

\---

Out of sight and hearing of the others (she had even gone so far as to check the vents for Allura's mice), Pidge sat on the floor of Lance's bedroom, her back against his bed. Her stomach was comfortably full of green goo, and she kept yawning even as Lance paced the entire length of his tiny room in front of her.

"So...you like me?" Lance said.

Pidge started to regret her meal. "Yes."

"Like, _romantically_?"

" _Yes_ ," Pidge snapped, rolling her eyes. Why him? she asked herself not for the first time.

Lance laughed, sitting beside her on the floor. He tried to hold her hand, but she snatched it away. "What?" he asked.

"I may have _romantic_ feelings for you, Lance," she said, looking at anything but him, "but I also have enough self-respect to not want attention from a guy that likes someone else."

"Oh," said Lance. To Pidge's ears, a single syllable never sounded so disappointed. "What if I told you that I...don't?"

"I wouldn't believe you."

"Why not?"

Pidge shrugged and scowled at the floor. "I have no reason to. You've given me no reason to."

Lance squirmed, and Pidge fancied she knew him well enough by now to know he was ashamed. "You're right, except for the whole...justification."

"Of course." Pidge rolled her eyes.

"Look, our Lions told us there's a reason that _we_ swapped and no one else did."

"And you think it's enough justification to put the moves on me?" Pidge said. Her heart pounded painfully, and even though she wanted nothing more than to lean into him, she still slid away, putting some space between them.

"No, no, that's not what--" Lance cut himself off and sighed, rubbing his face. "Listen, just... Pidge."

"What."

"I have feelings for you too, okay?" Lance said, and before Pidge could comment, before she could feel anything but blood rushing to her face, he continued, "And I think I have for a while now. Maybe it took something as extreme as _exchanging bodies_ for me to realize it, but I do. I like you."

Pidge exhaled, then she turned her body to face his. She still refused to get closer, at least for the moment. "Prove it," she said.

Lance blinked at her; she half-expected him to scoff, or worse, to refuse or claim he already had. But instead he leaned towards her, smiling. "Tell me how."

Pidge smirked, a plan forming in her head. "It's easy," she said, trying a flirtatious tone. She wasn't sure it was convincing, but then she saw the way Lance blushed. She inched just a bit closer to him. "Don't just tell me how you feel; show me."

He moved a little closer. "And how do I do that?"

They were now seated so closely together that she could feel his warm breath on his face. "You're smart enough to figure it out yourself."

"Heh, you finally admit I'm sm--"

"Oh, just kiss me, stupid!"

And he did.

It wasn't all the proof Pidge needed, but it was good enough for now, feeling his soft lips on hers and his nose brushing her own.

Lance pulled away first, but any disappointment Pidge felt dissipated when he peered at her through half-lidded eyes.

"No offense Pidge," said Lance as he took her small hand in his large one, "I have nothing against your face and something really good did come of all this, but that was the worst makeover I've ever had."

**Author's Note:**

> How to write satisfactory justifications for strange occurrences without them sounding contrived
> 
> To be fair, this was incredibly fun to write


End file.
